


The Devil Within

by QuietDarkness



Series: Simplicity and Complexity (Harrisco) [64]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 05:34:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19144582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuietDarkness/pseuds/QuietDarkness
Summary: Axiom knows things are hard for Maggie right now. Her life has been thrown into chaos by the strange electrical occurrences that match her own unique meta-powers. He tries to take her mind off her worries, only to have disaster strike again. Their investigation leads them straight into the depths of S.T.A.R. Labs, and right onto the Devil's doorstep...'Opposites don't just attract. They catch fire and burn the entire city down.'(Part 61)





	The Devil Within

**Author's Note:**

> (I'm back, ya'll! I am so sorry it took so long to get this out. Going back to school has taken up nearly all my time, but I've finally figured out my schedule in such a way that free time for writing is actually a thing! -gasp- I hope you enjoy it and stay tuned for more! Love you all! [Also, this starts with the Devil Within Teaser stuff. So just keep reading for the rest!] -QD)

Axiom wasn’t going to be bitter about it.

Nope.

Not even a little.

Okay, maybe a little. 

It was, after all, the best chew toy to ever exist. At least today. 

Having Harry grab it away from him, scold him and put the over-sized, now moderately chewed rubber handled screwdriver out of reach was enough to make Axiom sit right where he was and stare longingly at the very tip peeking out over the edge of the rolling toolbox, the metal flat head shiny and daring him to just jump up and grab it.

Oh-so-much whining ensued.

“Don’t even think about it, mutt.” Harry’s tone made his ears twitch, but he just kept staring, the whine turning into a soft pitched howl. Because he’d already thought about the ‘it’ in question. Several times in the last few minutes, in fact. “Why don’t you go find something useful to do?” Harry asked in clear annoyance. “Go… hunt rats or…” he sighed out, “Find Maggie. Just stop with the whining.”

Axiom stood up on all fours, growling a little, shaking his body, his collar jingling loudly. He barked at Harry once for good measure, making the tall man glare before Axiom gave one last look at the out-of-reach (for now) chewy screwdriver and padded out of the Cortex.  
It had been nine days since Maggie temporarily relocated to the labs. 

The electrical occurrences were only increasing, and the sightings of the ‘Ghost-Mags,’ as Cisco had dubbed it, had happened three more times. Luckily, no one else had been hurt since the incident on the roof. But the team was having a hard time keeping up with the damage to equipment and the building. It was strange. Where before it had focused on their homes, and hadn’t been nearly as destructive, it was now focused entirely on S.T.A.R. Labs and was, if nothing else, quite disastrous. On one hand, it was good to have the strange energy out of their collective homes. But on the other, the still growing strength of it was wreaking havoc on their place of work.

And poor Maggie.

It was clear now that she wasn’t the cause of it. But it was still very certain that she was somehow at the center of it all. Letting her leave the labs was just asking for disaster. Though she seemed to be taking it in stride, it was easy to see how much it was affecting her. Axiom could smell the guilt on her, feel the heavy energy in the air around her whenever something else was destroyed. The only good thing to come out of all this was Maggie had found another use for her own abilities. 

She’d always been good at tracking down energy, of telling different sorts apart. But now she was honing her abilities to pinpoint when and where the next surge would happen. It had been hard at first. It was so very close to her own power, her own brand of energy, that she couldn’t distinguish between the two. But once she learned the subtleties, she became like a dog with a bone. 

Axiom inwardly smiled at his own analogy, his sure pace leading him through the abandoned area of the building on the upper floors the team dubbed the Dead Halls due to the fact that, as Cisco had put it, nothing ever moved up there but spiders and ghosts. (Not that Axiom had ever seen any ghosts. He would know it if he had.) 

The Sha knew he’d find Maggie searching the labs, pacing the long corridors, keeping a constant vigil. Even though none of this was her fault in any possible way, she seemed to be taking all the responsibility on herself, no matter what anyone seemed to say to her to convince her otherwise.

A thump-thump-thumping sound caught Axiom’s attention the closer he got to her and he picked up the pace. Because he knew that sound. That was a good sound!

When he rounded the corner, he found Maggie walking steadily past some abandoned offices, bouncing a bright green tennis ball lazily as she went. _Oooooh yeeeees!_ Axiom practically launched himself at the ball when she bounced it again, startling her a little as he came up from behind her, catching the ball in his jaws and bounding ahead several feet. Maggie laughed a little as he turned, tail wagging furiously as he lowered his front half to the ground and dropped the ball, letting it roll in her direction. 

Because that screwdriver had been great. But a ball?! There was just no contest there.

Maggie picked it up with a smile and chucked it down the hall lightly. He turned, claws digging into the tiled floor as he skidded to go after it, the ball ricocheting off a wall and rolling toward a door. He almost barreled right into the solid wood of it as he scrambled to catch the fuzzy distraction in his mouth. “Careful, ya goof!” Maggie chuckled.

Maggie let Axiom chase that ball up and down the halls for a good twenty minutes before she tuckered out and sat down against a large bay window at the end of the abandoned hall. He took to resting beside her, the ball between his paws, watching her as she watched the rain come down in droves outside. She’d been happy, for a little while at least. But now that play was done, her thoughts were back to the seriousness of the situation at hand. 

‘Maggie all grown up now.’ He let her hear. She blinked, turning to look at him, meeting his gaze.

“What?” She asked softly. He sat back, the ball rolling away forgotten as he tilted his head.

‘Still young. But… stronger. Grown up now.’ He wasn’t sure how else to explain it. It was strange that when he’d been on the spectral plane, he’d been able to converse with Harry like anyone else would. But in this form, his thoughts could only come out in broken English, bits and pieces of sentences he had to make sure were strung together properly so they could understand. ‘I know… so hard sometimes.’ He looked out at the rain. ‘To fight. To be… you.’ He leaned heavily against her. ‘But… Not alone. Never alone.’ He felt her hand smooth around his back and rest at his back leg. He smelled salt in the air then that had nothing to do with the rain. ‘Oh, Maggie…’ He said gently, resting his head right into her shoulder. She hugged on to him. And silently she cried.

These people, this team, this family… in all his many years he had never known anyone like them. And it had nothing to do with the majority of them being metahuman, either. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for them, because there was nothing they wouldn’t do for each other, and they seemed to include him in that phrase… ‘each other.’

A violent shaking took hold then, snapping them both to attention as the windows beside them shook and a ceiling tile hit the floor in front of them, making Maggie yelp. They both got to their feet, Maggie bracing herself against a wall as electricity began to spark in all directions. His hackles raised and he growled because as much as this all felt like Maggie’s energy, he knew very well that it wasn’t. And he felt an intense need to protect Maggie from whatever it was that was responsible.

The windows beside them shattered, exploding inward. Maggie yelled, shielding her face with her arms as shards flew everywhere. A light fixture beyond them blew, sparks flying, a door groaned loudly as electricity burst through it. “Axiom!” Maggie yelled, reaching for him, grabbing him by the collar and pulling him back beside her. Then she threw both her hands out, calling on her own abilities. He felt the intense build up beside him, every single one of his hairs standing on end of their own volition.

One thing was for certain, Maggie King was a force all her own. 

Where everything around them was suddenly intense destruction, Maggie was control. Pure, unmatched. It was as though she was grabbing onto the negative energy itself, coiling it inside of her, soaking it up, dragging it away from everything it was trying to destroy. It never broke the area around her, never touched Axiom. And suddenly, it was just quiet beyond broken glass and air settling. 

Wide eyed, Maggie slowly lowered her hands, dampness still on her cheeks but completely forgotten as she timidly took a step forward. A breach opened at the end of the hall, causing her to breathe in sharply and raise her hands momentarily till she saw Harry, Cisco and Barry all step out. She sighed heavily, glancing at Axiom who padded carefully through the debris toward them. 

“Are you alright?!” Cisco demanded instantly, both he and Harry at her side in record time. Harry grabbed her by the shoulders, turning her, examining in that stern way of his for injury. She just let him, smiling sheepishly. 

“Dad, stop… I’m… wait, Dad, I’m fine.” She managed to get out, reaching and grabbing each of them by the arms. “What about everyone else? It didn’t feel like it was just here.” She said, glancing back at the loud rain outside what used to be window panes. Barry peered down at the empty parking lot below, grimacing a little.

“Two of the labs are completely wrecked.” He turned to look back at her. “We can’t keep doing this.” He stated, Harry nodded quietly, putting an arm around Maggie’s shoulders. Axiom tilted his head a little, looking beyond them all. An idea formed quickly at what he saw.

‘Use bait.’ 

Everyone looked at him.

“Elaborate, mutt.” Harry asserted. Axiom shook himself out momentarily.

‘Wants Maggie.’ He motioned his head toward the opposite wall he’d been looking at, hidden half in shadow due to the broken lights. Everyone glanced at it. Then just stared right along with him.

“Well that’s not ominous at all.” Cisco mused angrily, walking up to it.

The words ‘YOU BELONG WITH US MAGGIE KING’ were burnt right into the wall itself.

“What the hell does that mean?” Even said as quietly as it was, Axiom could hear the slight panic in Maggie’s voice. Harry moved in front of her, blocking the words from view and pulling her into him. She came willingly, hugging onto him absurdly tight. Harry never seemed to mind. He was the one person in the world whose arms made her feel safest. Yes, she felt safe with Cisco and everyone else, too. But Harry was special to Maggie and always would be. For obvious reasons. 

“We’ll figure it out.” He said, meeting Cisco’s careful gaze as his husband stepped into view. 

“We always do.” Barry added. Maggie closed her eyes and buried her face a little, breathing in and out deeply before pushing softly away. 

“And we always say that, right?” She said sharply, wiping angrily at her face. “I’m tired of all this. I want to go home. I want to go back to school. I want my life back!” She raised her voice at the last, throwing a hand up. “We’re no closer now to knowing who’s behind this than we were when it started, and that doesn’t tell us anything!” She motioned to the wall. “I just…” she shook her head, her voice failing her, eyes moving from one man to the next. “Sometimes this is too much.” She turned away, then, her back to them all as she made her way down the hall and away from the broken windows, disappearing around the corner. 

They all stood silent in her wake for several moments.

“She’s not wrong.” Cisco spoke up, a hand smoothing onto Harry’s lower back. The taller man nodded and sighed, looking at the wall.  
Barry moved up to the scorched cement, studying it for a moment. Then he touched a few of the letters and pulled his fingers away with a confused look, sniffing them and blinking. “We’ve got no real answers, I get that. But she is wrong about one thing… this does tell us something.”

“Besides someone having a serious stalker crush on Maggie?” Cisco asked. Harry nudged him a little, making Cisco shrug.

“What are you thinking, Allen?” Harry asked, moving up to him.

“I’m thinking electricity doesn’t smell like lighter fluid.” He dropped his hand. Harry’s eyes darted to the wall and back to Barry quickly, meeting the younger man’s gaze. “Someone’s been playing games with all of us. Maggie most of all. But whoever it is, they’ve been here. Right here. Which means…”

“Which means I need to go look at the security cameras.” Cisco chirped, brows raised, a slow smile spreading on his lips and then fading much quicker. “Except I’ve checked that thing a million times already.” He sighed a little, running his hand through his hair. “Though… I guess I didn’t really check the Dead Halls thoroughly.”

“Wait… before,” Harry turned to look at Axiom, “You said use bait. What did you mean by that?” He demanded softly. Axiom wagged his tail a little.

‘Wants Maggie. Set trap. Use bait.’ He replied simply. Though of course he knew it was anything but simple. It wasn’t a scenario they hadn’t played out at other times. Leading the sort of life they all lived put them in these sorts of situations more often that not. It didn’t mean it was easy to think about using Maggie as bait. But it might be the solution to all this. And as he watched the collective expressions on the men around him, he knew they were considering it. And that they hated that they were. 

“Let’s check the security feed, see what we find first, go from there.” Cisco offered.

“I’ll get Snow, have her help me with this wall. See if we can pick up some foreign DNA and anything else that might be helpful.” Harry added. Barry nodded. 

“Sounds like the beginning of a plan to me.” Barry chimed in. And just like that, all three of them left the hallway, leaving Axiom standing there alone.

The rain sounded strangely soothing with nothing to interrupt it’s fall, the hall turned into a sort of breezeway without the window to keep the outside world away. The heady smell was everywhere, entangling his senses. But he could still smell the pungent accelerant on the wall and the lingering aroma of something like apples. He’d smelled that a lot lately, sweet and crisp. He hadn’t questioned it, simply because Hope was always doing something with plants just about everywhere in the building. But maybe it wasn’t Hope. Maybe he should question it… because maybe it was a clue. Maybe he’d just been too caught up in trying to protect Maggie and keep her calm that he hadn’t seen what was literally right in front of his nose.

He lowered his snout to the debris littered floor, sniffing, padding quickly from the wall to the warped door to an air grate and inhaled deeply. Then he shook himself out, swaying a little, blinking. The smell was momentarily intoxicating… and coming from somewhere inside the building itself. He could smell it everywhere because it was flowing through the air filtration system. Hm. 

He looked back at the words on the wall, baring his teeth a little. Maggie King didn’t belong to anyone but Maggie King. And only Maggie could decide who she would be, could be, was. No as-yet unseen person would dictate that for her. And all of them, Axiom included, would make damn sure it stayed that way. 

He turned to make his way down the halls, once more in search of the girl who meant so much to him, but with a whole new mission in mind. He paused only when his foot knocked into the fuzzy green tennis ball, small crunching sounds meeting his ears as it rolled a few feet away. Inwardly, he smiled before picking it up in his teeth and hurrying away. He would save the ball for later, when Maggie’s world didn’t need saving and a game of fetch wouldn’t be so exhausting for either of them. Right now, there were far more important things to worry about. 

One of which was, of all things, finding the surprisingly over-stimulating smell of apples that had no place in a building like this…

***

“This is ridiculous.” Maggie groused, following along after Axiom but with a shuffle to her step that had more to do with the fact that she thought this was not even close to a lead, and not actually being lazy. “I still don’t smell anything except wet.” 

It was true. He seemed to be the only one picking up the heady apple scent, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. And yes, he could have looked for the source on his own. But he was sure this would be good for Maggie. Focusing on something more productive than brooding on her current situation had to be better. “Axiom, just stop for a minute.” She urged, placing her hands on her hips and firmly planting her feet. The dim blue lights of the ‘catacombs’ played out the displeasure on her face in faded lines. “There’s nothing down here but pipes and water.” She looked around sourly.

The catacombs, as they’d come to call them, were the massive tunnels of pipes that ran beneath the building. They still served a purpose, conduits of electricity or water or whatever else the labs needed flushed in and out. But they were dark and uninhabitable at the best of times. Cisco and Harry were typically the only ones whoever came down here, simply for that reason. And only if it was really necessary. 

‘I smell. You follow.’ Axiom said, shaking himself out momentarily before continuing. He could practically feel the annoyance flowing out of Maggie, but she dropped her hands from her hips with an immense sigh and simply followed. If he could have smiled, he would have. Her trust in him was everything. He was more than honored to have it.

Eventually, his nose lead them straight to… a wall. It took a good twenty minutes of zigzagging, going from corner to corridor and crossing again because the scent seemed to overlap itself about a dozen times, tangling his senses up a bit. But once he’d figured out the freshest part of the scent, it was much easier going. Maggie groused and grumbled, complained her shoes were wet and that she was pretty sure she would never be able to wash the smell out of her clothes. But when they reached the wall, she became uncharacteristically quiet. 

To him, it was just a scent-laden wall. But to her?

“Can you feel that?” She nearly whispered, as though she were afraid her voice might trigger something. She stepped tentatively up to the concrete wall, fingers outstretched to touch it. Then she pulled them back, thinking better about it. “So much energy.” Her eyes were wide, and the bitter scent of her fear began to mingle with the apple smell in his nose. She was afraid… but why? It was just a wall. She took two long steps backward, distancing herself. “We… we should get my dads.” She whispered. 

‘Why?’ He asked, continuing to sniff the wall. He opened his senses up entirely. And he could feel it then. Maggie’s energy. It permeated the concrete, deep into it, beyond it, somewhere they couldn’t see. Except… it wasn’t Maggie’s energy. And it was so choked with apple that it made him instantly feel drowsy, uneasy on his paws. He wavered, stumbling sideways and landing heavy onto his haunches.

“Axiom?” Maggie demanded, moving toward him. “Are you o-“

A sudden thickness in the air had her freezing in place, eyes wide again. And it had him fall over completely. He couldn’t understand why the smell was so toxic to him when mixed with her energy. But he _knew_ … knew with everything he was… that something very bad was about to happen. 

“We were wondering how long it would take you to find us.” Voices spoke all around them. But still just one voice. One voice he knew so very well. It made his heart speed up, made panic rise in his chest, but he couldn’t get his limbs to cooperate. It was like they were completely useless, his muscles weak. He growled, tried to lift his head, but even that was impossible now. His vision was swimming as the smell and energy just kept building. He couldn’t see them, but he knew exactly what they looked like. _Who_ they looked like. “Come now, Maggie.” They spoke in unison, barely an echo between them. “Don’t be afraid.”

And the last thing he heard and felt before his vision failed completely, and he slipped into the darkness, was Maggie’s angry roar as her energy split the air…

* * *

“-ble. You’re saying they hacked into an, and I’m quoting here, ‘unhackable’ system.” Harry’s severely agitated tone had Axiom blinking heavily. He felt… confused. Where was he?

“Okay, so maybe I said that.” Cisco crossed his arms, frowning. “But it’s not like I imagined anyone would be able to completely reverse engineer my entire coding! I mean, who does that?!”

And suddenly everything came back to him. The smell, and the catacombs, and Maggie, and the wa- MAGGIE. He scrambled upright, nearly falling off the gurney in the medlab, only to find both Hope’s and Caitlin’s hands on him. “Woah, Axiom!” Caitlin soothed, helping him ease back down to his side as Hope ran fingers through the hair on his shoulder. “Don’t move so fast. You’re having some pretty serious proximity-affects to Maggie’s power.”

‘Maggie.’ He said firmly, blinking hard and shaking his head a little. ‘They took her.’

“They?” Harry asked, moving with Cisco to stand in front of him. 

‘Yes. The other ones.’ The two men exchanged looks with the two women. Barry sped into the room a split second later. He heaved a breath and then walked over to the gurney.

“I’ve been over every inch of the catacombs and did a speed run of the building to be on the safe side. If she’s here, she’s hidden pretty damn well. Anything on the security feed?” He asked Cisco who sighed, ignoring the look Harry was giving him. 

“Someone hacked the system. Any footage with Maggie is just… nonexistent.” He slipped his hands deep into his pockets, doing his best not to let Harry’s glare get to him.

“Your unhackable system?” Barry asked, brows raised in slight surprise. 

“FINE. Right, jeez. Guy says one thing…” he paced away from the gurney. Axiom caught Caitlin’s light smile, though it faded quickly.

“You were saying?” Hope asked Axiom, then. “Who are the other ones?”

‘The other Maggies.’ He replied, slowly sitting up. Caitlin didn’t take her hands off him till she was sure he wouldn’t topple sideways. Honestly, he was glad of it. He felt a bit like he’d run the entire length of the city and back again without stopping. His muscles may as well have been made of the green Jell-o Jesse liked so much.

“Come again?” Barry asked plainly.

‘Others. All Maggie. Her voice, her power. All Maggie.’ Axiom proceeded to tell them what he could. Not that he knew what good it would do. The other Maggies had gotten what they wanted, so why would they bother to stick around the labs now?

“So a dozen-ish Maggies were running around the city and labs and we never noticed? And how is that even possible?” Cisco asked, swinging his legs idly from where he now sat on the gurney. Axiom had taken to the floor, pacing, trying to get his muscles to wake up more.

“I might be able to answer that a little.” Caitlin said. “I was able to get some DNA off the wall upstairs, and from the catacombs. Three different sets. And they’re all identical to Maggie.” She was looking through something on her laptop screen, sitting in a chair against the wall. “Except they each have their own separate E marker.”

“They’re all from other earths?” Harry asked, still standing in one spot, arms crossed. 

Caitlin nodded, looking up at him. “Yup. If I had to guess, I’d say every single one of them is from a unique earth. Like you are from Earth-2.”

“Okay, so that’s just… odd.” Barry remarked.

“What about any of this hasn’t been nutty from the start?” Cisco demanded, hopping off the gurney. “Here’s a better question, though… how’d they all get together? And how’d they all get here? It’s not like they can open breaches.”

“I have a more concerning question.” Hope said quietly, watching as Axiom stopped his pacing and looked at her. “What do they want with Maggie?”

‘Collective.’ Axiom replied. Because he knew exactly what they were. They may have all been single people once, but now they were one entity, for all intents and purposes, with a collective strength so immense that it was toxic to something like him. It was why they’d been able to overpower him just by being there. They were just that powerful, tapped into each other like that.

‘Unity. Like… bees.’ He tried to get them to understand. Harry dropped his arms, a look passing his features. 

“You mean a hive mind.” That was Harry, always so quick to understand. Axiom nodded his head once. “They want to assimilate her.” And he nodded again. “Fuck.” Harry whispered. But they all heard. And it was clear from everyone’s expressions that they all were thinking the same thing.

No one knew the reasons why or what sense it made. No one knew where the Maggies had all come from or what their plans were. All they knew was that if they had Maggie, if they wanted her for their ‘colony,’ it meant nothing good for the girl they all loved. A strangled, suffocating feeling of anxiety and fear began to permeate the air around Axiom. It came from everyone. Including himself. Because they had nothing to go on. Not really. It left them with one, far more worrisome question than anything yet.

How were they going to save _their_ Maggie King?

**Author's Note:**

> (To be continued...)


End file.
